The induction charger for Wiimotes from Energizer needs no direct connection …

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There are few worse feelings than getting ready to play a new game and finding your wireless controllers are filled with dead batteries. This is a problem easily avoided by making sure your junk drawer is filled with spares, but wouldn't it be great to not have to worry about it at all? Energizer has a solution for your battery woes, and its charging technology is the ultimate in convenience: you simply place your Wiimote down on the pad and walk away. But does it work?

Inductive charging moves electricity through a magnetic field, and allows batteries and other devices to be charged without any exposed metallic contacts or wires. The Energizer Wii Remote Flat Panel Induction Charger slams a bunch of expensive-sounding words together for the name, but it's actually quite simple—you simply put the battery packs into your Wiimote, plug the flat panel into a wall socket, and then you put your Wii Remote onto the panel whenever you'd like to charge your controller. A red light turns on to show the charger has a connection and turns green whenever the charge is completed.

There is a small magnet in the base that helps keep the Wiimote in the right place, so putting the controller down in the proper position is simple. The technology works with a naked controller, and the controller fits even with a MotionPlus and plastic condom connected. The whole set-up ensures you always have a charged controller: when you're done playing, you put the controller down on the black charging pad, and when you'd like to play again, just pick it up. Our review model had room for two controllers.

The charging pad is stiff plastic and metal, and feels solid and high-quality in your hand. This is what you'll be putting on your entertainment center, so it's a good thing it's not completely ugly. There is a subtle etching of the Wiimote on the matte charging pad itself so you know which way to place the controller... if at any point you were confused. The battery packs themselves slide into the battery cavity on the controller and also replace the back panel of your controllers, so you'll want to be sure to keep your original battery panels around somewhere.

The battery packs actually come with some interesting features: you'll be able to hit the internal button to reconnect the controllers to your console by pushing on a now-external button with a pen or any other slim object. This feature was mandatory as you can't remove the battery pack without the controller turning off, but it's also rather convenient on its own. The packs cannot charge on their own, the light simply blinks when they're placed on the pad; they need to be attached to a Wiimote in order to draw a charge.

We did run into a few snags while testing this device. The lights sometimes have trouble telling if the charge in the remote is completed; in a few cases, by simply moving a fully-charged remote from one side to the other the light would change from green to red, although my Wii would say the controller has a full charge. The majority of the time, however, the product was able to tell if the controller was charged or needed some time on the base.

The whole set-up feels like something from the future, and even after extensive use it proves to be a great addition to your gaming setup. You put your controller down on the base after installing the battery pack, and every time you pick it up you know you'll have a full charge. I'm a supremely disorganized person when it comes to batteries, to the point where when I invite friends over they'll pick up a pack of AAs just to save us all the headache. I just wish it worked with my 360 or PS3 controllers.